top of page

Saint Francis of Assisi

Francesco was born in Assisi in 1182, in the midst of the ferment of the communal age.  Son of a merchant, as a young man he aspired to enter the circle of the small town nobility. Hence the participation in the war against Perugia and the attempt to go to Puglia to participate in the crusade. His journey, however, was interrupted by a divine voice that invited him to rebuild the Church. And Francis obeyed: abandoning his family and friends, he led a life of penance and solitude in total poverty for some years. In 1209, following a new inspiration, he began to preach the Gospel in the cities while the first disciples joined him with whom he went to Rome to have the Pope approve his choice of life. From 1210 to 1224 he wandered through the streets and squares of Italy and everywhere flocked to him numerous crowds and groups of disciples whom he called friars, brothers. He then welcomed the young Clare who started the second Franciscan order, and founded a third order for those who wished to live as penitents, with rules suitable for the laity. He died in the night between 3 and 4 October 1226. Francis is one of the great figures of humanity who speaks to every generation. Its charm derives from the great love for Jesus of which, first, he received the stigmata, a sign of Christ's love for men and for the entire creation of God.

San Vincenzo de 'Paoli

Born in Pouy in Gascony on April 24, 1581, he was ordained a priest at the age of 19. In 1605 while traveling from Marseille to Narbonne he was taken prisoner by Turkish pirates and sold as a slave in Tunis. He was set free by his own "master", whom he converted. From this experience was born in him the desire to bring material and spiritual relief to the prisoners. In 1612 he became parish priest near Paris. At his school were formed priests, religious and lay people who were the animators of the Church of France, and his voice became the interpreter of the rights of the humble among the powerful. He promoted a simple and popular form of evangelization. He founded the Priests of the Mission (Lazarists) and together with Saint Luisa de Marillac, the Daughters of Charity (1633). He said to the priests of St. Lazarus: "Let us love God, my brothers, but let us love him at our expense, with the fatigue of our arms, with the sweat of our faces". For him the Queen of France invented the Ministry of Charity. And as an unusual "minister" he organized aid to the poor on a national scale. He died in Paris on September 27, 1660 and was canonized in 1737.

St. John Bosco

Great apostle of the young, he was their father and guide to salvation with the method of persuasion, of authentic religiosity, of love always aimed at preventing rather than repressing. On the model of St. Francis de Sales, his educational and apostolic method is inspired by a Christian humanism that draws motivation and energy from the sources of evangelical wisdom. He founded the Salesians, the Pious Union of Salesian Cooperators and, together with St Mary Mazzarello, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. Among the most beautiful fruits of his pedagogy, St Dominic Savio, fifteen, who understood his lesson: "We, here, at Don Bosco's school, make holiness consist in being very happy and in the perfect fulfillment of our duties" . John Bosco was proclaimed a saint at the close of the year of the Redemption, on Easter day 1934. On January 31, 1988, John Paul II declared him Father and Teacher of youth, "establishing that with this title he is honored and invoked, especially by those who they recognize themselves as his spiritual children ".

bottom of page